Looting Haiti

Bank robber Willie Sutton said he targeted banks because “that’s where the money is.” While most would disapprove of his ethics, few would argue with his logic. Why, then, do we keep hearing about thieves targeting Haiti?

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady informs us of the latest allegations of stealing from the poorest of the poor:

It is possible that by getting to the bottom of how Haiti Teleco operated during the Aristide years, investigators will finally uncover the details of the arrangement that Fusion Telecommunications—run by former Democratic Party Finance Chairman Marvin Rosen with Joseph P. Kennedy II and numerous influential Democrats on the board—had in Haiti during the Clinton years. That would be edifying, given how Bill Clinton inexplicably tolerated Mr. Aristide’s despotism even after the U.S. had restored him to power in 1994.

Back in those days, Haitians working for Teleco whispered to me of an alleged kickback scheme. Teleco was one of the few sources of hard currency for the country and they charged that the deal between Fusion and Mr. Aristide meant that the company was being looted. They claimed that Fusion had an office inside Teleco, was getting access to the Teleco network at a big discount, and was paying Mr. Aristide in return.

Ms. O’Grady doesn’t go to the trouble of answering the obvious question: Why would thieves look favorably upon Haiti as a target? Why not the Cayman Islands, or Greenwich, or Switzerland? Don’t these people realize Haiti is dirt-poor? Here’s how poor, according to the CIA’s website:

Poverty, corruption, and poor access to education for much of the population are among Haiti’s most serious disadvantages. Over the longer term, Haiti needs to create jobs for its young workforce and to build institutional capacity. Haiti’s economy suffered a severe setback when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of its capital city, Port-au-Prince, and neighboring areas in January 2010. Already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty, the damage to Port-au-Prince caused the country’s GDP to contract an estimated 5.1% in 2010. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country’s widespread deforestation.

If you’re wondering why anyone would scavenge such a place for filthy lucre, the CIA has an explanation:

The government relies on formal international economic assistance for fiscal sustainability, with over half of its annual budget coming from outside sources.

The annual budget, as of 2011, was about $1.7 billion. (At least Haiti has a budget; perhaps the U.S. Senate, which hasn’t passed a budget in nearly three years, could learn something from Haiti’s government.) But I digress.

So the people who are stealing from Haiti really are stealing from the countries that supply foreign aid to Haiti out of altruistic motives as they attempt to help a desperately poor country. Ultimately, the victims of this form of theft are the people suffering in the refugee camps and those trying to eke out a living from one of the most inhospitable places on earth (thanks to poor land-management practices and corrupt governance).

And don’t think for a minute that Haiti is the only place where this sort of transaction takes place.

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One thought on “Looting Haiti”

Another way of looking at this is that the strategy of the US Department of State is to go after corruption under Haiti’s sovereign (democratically elected governments) while it ignores and does nothing about corruption under the governments it closely allied with and helped get into office (for example in 2011 with the banning of Lavalas from taking part in elections).
Corruption is endemic in Haiti, but it seems clear now that big media/government/and conservative outlets only want to highlight corruption that suits their cause.
Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre has pointed out how U.S. corruption in the Iraq war alone has topped $6.6 billion. No one has been convicted or put on trial for this corruption.
see: http://wadnerpierre.blogspot.com/2012/03/clean-up-corruption-at-home.html